1269 Arts and sciences poems

(Lord Egremont speaks) It was a way of punishing the house, setting it ablaze in ruddy, golden flames; smoke in billows up the front stairs; walls cringing like leaves. I say, I am afraid in my own house. Do not believe I started this, it was that man, who was to portray the park alone, mind you, but then became enamored of the music room. And now what have we: floods of fire rolling from room to room, furniture wrecked in seethe, my wife Lady Amelia turned wraith, God knows what fish and drowning slaves cast up in the tide along with pocket Bibles, snuffboxes, antimacassars, the familiar bric-a-brac of the well-kept house. Where are Edward, Lavinia, Jane? Why is no one crying, “Fire! Fire!”? Am I alone? The man has no sense of proportion. He had himself lashed to the mast, once, it is said, on a steamboat off the harbor mouth in full blizzard: sailors blinded by snow, the boat crippled, led by the lead, they damn near died to a man, and he— he was observing “the light at sea,” he said. The painting? “Soapsuds and whitewash,” the critics described it so. But here, in our house, it is catastrophe of flame, not weather, he loosed. He is a man in love with last things, clearly, the last things, but never understood the first, it seems to me, and certainly not the genial medias res of decorous, daily life. What tea-times we’ve known in these chambers, what sonatinas, lieder of an evening, whist, Emmeline embroidering, the hounds calm at the hearth, now all dissolved. Perhaps there are no flames. A bloody haze arises, it could be my own eyes that fail. I hear nothing, but fear the upstairs rooms, cramped rooms I have not entered in ages, only remember the draughts, creakings, grime in closet corners, windows too tight to lean from, the smell of antique damp. And now, who knows what acts unroll on narrow beds, on floorboards warped askew? As steam is rising, rising? As heat buoys the house up into an atmosphere all of its own creation? Who are the participants? Where has Amelia gone? Why, in this furnace, can I hear no sound, or feel my own skin begin to peel?

A young black girl stopped by the woods, so young she knew only one man: Jim Crow but she wasn’t allowed to call him Mister. The woods were his and she respected his boundaries even in the absence of fence. Of course she delighted in the filling up of his woods, she so accustomed to emptiness, to being taken at face value. This face, her face eternally the brown of declining autumn, watches snow inter the grass, cling to bark making it seem indecisive about race preference, a fast-to-melt idealism. With the grass covered, black and white are the only options, polarity is the only reality; corners aren’t neutral but are on edge. She shakes off snow, defiance wasted on the limited audience of horse. The snow does not hypnotize her as it wants to, as the blond sun does in making too many prefer daylight. She has promises to keep, the promise that she bear Jim no bastards, the promise that she ride the horse only as long as it is willing to accept riders, the promise that she bear Jim no bastards, the promise to her face that it not be mistaken as shadow, and miles to go, more than the distance from Africa to Andover, more than the distance from black to white before she sleeps with Jim.

1. Falmouth, Massachusetts, 1972 Oak table, knotted legs, the chirp And scrape of tines to mouth. Four children, four engines Of want. That music. What did your hand mean to smooth Across the casket of your belly? What echoed there, if not me—tiny body Afloat, akimbo, awake or at rest? Every night you fed the others Bread leavened with the grains Of your own want. How Could you stand me near you, In you, jump and kick tricking The heart, when what you prayed for Was my father’s shadow, your name In his dangerous script, an envelope Smelling of gun-powder, bay rum, Someone to wrestle, sing to, question, Climb? 2. Interstate 101 South, California, 1981 Remember the radio, the Coca-Cola sign Phosphorescent to the left, bridge After bridge, as though our lives were Engineered simply to go? And so we went Into those few quiet hours Alone together in the dark, my arm On the rest beside yours, our lights Pricking at fog, tugging us patiently Forward like a needle through gauze. Night held us like a house. Sometimes an old song Would fill the car like a ghost. 3. Leroy, Alabama, 2005 There’s still a pond behind your mother’s old house, Still a stable with horses, a tractor rusted and stuck Like a trophy in mud. And the red house you might Have thrown stones at still stands on stilts up the dirt road. A girl from the next town over rides in to lend us Her colt, cries when one of us kicks it with spurs. Her father wants to buy her a trailer, let her try her luck In the shows. They stay for dinner under the tent Your brother put up for the Fourth. Firebugs flare And vanish. I am trying to let go of something. My heart cluttered with names that mean nothing. Our racket races out to the darkest part of the night. The woods catch it and send it back. 4. But let’s say you’re alive again— Your hands are long and tell your age. You hold them there, twirling a bent straw, And my reflection watches, hollow-faced, Not trying to hide. The waiters make it seem Like Cairo. Back and forth shouting That sharp language. And for the first time I tell you everything. No shame In my secrets, shoddy as laundry. I have praised your God For the blessing of the body, snuck From pleasure to pleasure, lying for it, Holding it like a coin or a key in my fist. I know now you’ve known all along. I won’t change. I want to give Everything away. To wander forever. Here is a pot of tea. Let’s share it Slowly, like sisters.

Empty air has its own mechanism,me dijo. Its gears accord to whim. We go out only when we have to,me dijo. We have hidden things for breathing. You can't understand it prepped that way,me dijo. It always changes, but never readily enough. Some things we say more of and then again,me dijo. They always mean less once pre-written. The context connections are far too frail,me dijo. To make them you need to pixel-point time. There are no click-in-n-out pictures,me dijo. You facet your eyes to see them multiply. There are hands held out everywhere,me dijo. We have to be careful what to step around/in. Sometimes we come this close too late,me dijo. Then we have to wait for inertia to embrace us. We are the hungry, hungry: so ravenous,me dijo. We will tear at your insides and lick them clean.

this South American up here on a Gugg walked in with his whore and she sat on the edge of my bed and crossed her fine legs and I kept looking at her legs and he pulled at his stringy necktie and I had a hangover and he asked me WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE AMERICAN POETS? and I told him I didn’t think very much of the American poets and then he went on to ask some other very dull questions (as his whore’s legs layed along the side of my brain) like WELL? YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BUT IF YOU WERE TEACHING A CLASS AND ONE OF THE STUDENTS ASKED YOU WHICH AMERICAN POETS THEY SHOULD READ WHAT WOULD YOU TELL THEM? she crossed her legs as I watched and I thought I could knock him out with one punch rape her in 4 minutes catch a train for L.A. get off in Arizona and walk off into the desert and I couldn’t tell him that I would never teach a class that along with not liking American poetry that I didn’t like American classes either or the job that they would expect me to do, so I said Whitman, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence’ poems about reptiles and beasts, Auden. and then I realized that Whitman was the only true American, that Eliot was not an American somehow and the others certainly not, and he knew it too he knew that I had fucked up but I made no apologies thought some more about rape I almost loved the woman but I knew that when she walked out that I would never see her again and we shook hands and the Gugg said he’d send me the article when it came out but I knew that he didn’t have an article and he knew it too and then he said I will send you some of my poems translated into English and I said fine and I watched them walk out of the place I watched her highheels clack down the tall green steps and then both of them were gone but I kept remembering her dress sliding all over her like a second skin and I was wild with mourning and love and sadness and being a fool unable to communicate anything and I walked in and finished that beer cracked another put on my ragged king’s coat and walked out into the New Orleans street and that very night I sat with my friends and acted vile and the ass much mouth and villainy and cruelness and they never knew why.

It had to be from someone whose grandparents were born in Shanghai not the city’s greatest citizens, but certainly among the sober ones to make their small now eroded mark It had to be from a distant or dissolute descendant (yes,moi) who can sing praises unworthy of even a flicker of your attention Doesn’t this sound like it might turn into a love poem or a prayer Well, you are wrong, because a man of the people, which I am not nor will I ever be, doesn’t single out one above all others as this is a hierarchical construction and therefore undemocratic and antihumanist It had to be from someone whose virtues do not include stubbornness, patience, gentleness, loyalty, or truthfulness It had to be from someone who could take my place after I left the room never to return It had to be from someone who didn’t exist before this poem began writing itself down

Did I, my lines intend for public view, How many censures, would their faults pursue, Some would, because such words they do affect, Cry they’re insipid, empty, and uncorrect. And many have attained, dull and untaught, The name of wit only by finding fault. True judges might condemn their want of wit, And all might say, they’re by a woman writ. Alas! a woman that attempts the pen, Such an intruder on the rights of men, Such a presumptuous creature, is esteemed, The fault can by no virtue be redeemed. They tell us we mistake our sex and way; Good breeding, fashion, dancing, dressing, play Are the accomplishments we should desire; To write, or read, or think, or to inquire Would cloud our beauty, and exhaust our time, And interrupt the conquests of our prime; Whilst the dull manage of a servile house Is held by some our outmost art, and use. Sure ’twas not ever thus, nor are we told Fables, of women that excelled of old; To whom, by the diffusive hand of Heaven Some share of wit, and poetry was given. On that glad day, on which the Ark returned, The holy pledge, for which the land had mourned, The joyful tribes, attend it on the way, The Levites do the sacred charge convey, Whilst various instruments, before it play; Here, holy virgins in the concert join The louder notes, to soften, and refine, And with alternate verse complete the hymn divine. Lo! the young Poet, after God’s own heart, By Him inspired, and taught the Muses’ art, Returned from conquest, a bright chorus meets, That sing his slain ten thousand in the streets. In such loud numbers they his acts declare, Proclaim the wonders of his early war, That Saul upon the vast applause does frown, And feels its mighty thunder shake the crown. What, can the threatened judgment now prolong? Half of the kingdom is already gone; The fairest half, whose influence guides the rest, Have David’s empire o’er their hearts confessed. A woman here, leads fainting Israel on, She fights, she wins, she triumphs with a song, Devout, majestic, for the subject fit, And far above her arms, exalts her wit; Then, to the peaceful, shady palm withdraws, And rules the rescued nation, with her laws. How are we fall’n, fall’n by mistaken rules? And education’s, more than nature’s fools, Debarred from all improvements of the mind, And to be dull, expected and designed; And if some one would soar above the rest, With warmer fancy, and ambition pressed, So strong th’ opposing faction still appears, The hopes to thrive can ne’er outweigh the fears, Be cautioned then my Muse, and still retired; Nor be despised, aiming to be admired; Conscious of wants, still with contracted wing, To some few friends, and to thy sorrows sing; For groves of laurel thou wert never meant; Be dark enough thy shades, and be thou there content.

Such a book must contain— it always does!—a disclaimer. I make no such. For here I have collected all the best— the lily from the field among them, forget-me-nots and mint weed, a rose for whoever expected it, and a buttercup for the children to make their noses yellow. Here is clover for the lucky to roll in, and milkweed to clatter, a daisy for one judgment, and a violet for when he loves you or if he loves you not and why not. Those who sniff and say no, These are the wrong ones (and there always are such people!)— let them go elsewhere, and quickly! For you and I, who have made it this far, are made happy by occasions requiring orchids, or queenly arrangements and even a bird-of-paradise, but happier still by the flowers of circumstance, cattails of our youth, field grass and bulrush. I have included the devil’s paintbrush but only as a peacock among barn fowl.

I ask them to take a poem and hold it up to the light like a color slide or press an ear against its hive. I say drop a mouse into a poem and watch him probe his way out, or walk inside the poem’s room and feel the walls for a light switch. I want them to waterski across the surface of a poem waving at the author’s name on the shore. But all they want to do is tie the poem to a chair with rope and torture a confession out of it. They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means.

Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past, & Future sees Whose ears have heard, The Holy Word, That walk'd among the ancient trees. Calling the lapsed Soul And weeping in the evening dew: That might controll, The starry pole; And fallen fallen light renew! O Earth O Earth return! Arise from out the dewy grass; Night is worn, And the morn Rises from the slumberous mass. Turn away no more: Why wilt thou turn away The starry floor The watry shore Is giv'n thee till the break of day.